1. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless network communications, and more particularly to improving communication of a control channel in broadcast services.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like. Additionally, the systems can conform to specifications such as third generation partnership project (3GPP) (e.g., 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution)/LTE-Advanced), ultra mobile broadband (UMB), evolution data optimized (EV-DO), etc.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations. Further, communications between mobile devices and base stations may be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth.
Evolved multicast broadcast multimedia service (eMBMS) can also be supported such that base stations or other devices can broadcast multimedia data over multimedia broadcast over single frequency network (MBSFN) subframes or similar subframes. Devices can receive and consume the data based at least in part on parameters regarding structure and occurrence of the MBSFN subframes. In one specific example, a base station can transmit a configuration message (e.g., MBSFNAreaConfiguration message) over a control channel that specifies allocated resources and periods for transmitting channels (e.g., physical multicast channels (PMCH)), corresponding logical channel identifiers for the channels, multicast channel (MCH) scheduling period (MSP) over which a MCH scheduling information (MSI) media access control (MAC) control element is transmitted, etc. Such configuration messages can comprise information regarding a large number of channels, and can thus be relatively large. Thus, a modulation and coding scheme of a high data rate can be used to communicate the configuration messages, which can degrade transmission robustness and reliability.